The killing by ICE of Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Maine should scare everyone who believes government must be accountable
By Shamecca Brown-Granite State News Collaborative
I am scared. And I don’t say that lightly.
I sit back sometimes and look at what is happening in this country, and I genuinely ask myself: What the hell are we becoming? Because a 26-year-old man is dead. His name was Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero.
On July 13, 2026, Johan was shot and killed by an ICE agent during an immigration enforcement operation in Biddeford, Maine. And, according to reporting about the case, Johan wasn’t even the person ICE originally came there looking for. But now he is dead.
ICE says Johan attempted to flee and that an officer fired because his vehicle posed a threat to public safety. But questions have been raised about exactly what happened. Because when an agent of our government takes a human life, we cannot simply accept a statement, close the file, and move on to tomorrow’s news.
And Johan’s death did not happen in isolation. Just six days earlier, on July 7, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was killed in Houston in another fatal encounter involving ICE. Two men. Six days.
Asking questions about the actions of law enforcement does not mean you don’t believe in laws. Demanding accountability does not mean you support crime. Caring about the life of an immigrant does not mean you want open borders. It means you still believe a human life has value.
Apparently, even saying that has become controversial in America. And that scares the hell out of me. Because I need somebody to tell me when immigration status became a death sentence. When did we decide that being undocumented — or simply being caught up in an immigration enforcement operation — means your life suddenly has less value?
We are talking about human beings. People with mothers. People with fathers. People with children. People who laugh, work, love, struggle, dream and wake up every morning trying to survive this crazy world just like the rest of us.
Johan was somebody’s son. He wa.s a little girl’s father. And now his family has to live with the reality that he is never coming home, and the day we stop caring about people simply because they don’t look like us, come from where we come from, speak our language, or have the right paperwork is the day we need to seriously ask ourselves what kind of country we have become.
Because this is bigger than Johan, and his death cannot simply become another headline we forget next week.
We have watched immigration enforcement become more aggressive. We have watched communities become afraid. We have watched people detained and families torn apart. And, within six days, two men have been killed in encounters involving ICE agents.
Demand accountability
I don’t give a damn what political party you belong to when we are talking about whether government agents should be able to take a human life without the public demanding a full, independent and transparent accounting of exactly what happened. That should not be a Republican position. That should not be a Democratic position. That is a HUMAN position.
Yes, I am angry. I am angry because I have children. I am angry because I am a Black woman in America who knows what it feels like to watch another human being’s death become a debate before their family has even had time to grieve. I am angry because we keep being told to trust systems while simultaneously being told not to question those systems, not to question authority or get too angry or make people uncomfortable.
But guess what? I am uncomfortable. And maybe more of us need to be. Because becoming comfortable with people dying should scare us far more than becoming angry about it.
When we give any government extraordinary power without demanding extraordinary accountability, we should all be paying attention. History has already shown us what can happen when people decide something isn’t their problem because it is happening to somebody else.
I wasn’t standing on that street in Biddeford. I did not witness every second of what happened. And because questions remain about the circumstances surrounding Johan’s death, I am not going to pretend I know something I don’t. But that is exactly why I want answers. All of them. Not the politically convenient truth.
Shamecca Brown is a New Hampshire-based columnist who is family-oriented and passionate about serving underserved communities. These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.